The author mostly had me with the first half of the article, then went overboard praising the Product Safety Commission and even worse, safety-related lawsuits. I'm glad guns are exempt -- many if not most product safety lawsuits are shining examples of why we need tort reform.

You forgot to mix DOOM into there.

Yay! A gun control debate after a big shooting! And look, I'm in it now!

That said, I'm on the side of the gun nuts. And the problem is really inborne. It used to be that more people were packing but now there's a social stigma associated with it -- so fewer "normal people" are going to look into the gun show loophole let alone take advantage of it. This stigma is far weaker in states dominated by gun nuts.

Has anyone done a study on the frequency _and_ severity of these incidents in gun control and gun freedom states? It seems that red states are winning this one, with freak incidents like the famous incident in Texas decades ago involving high ground and a sniper rifle.

And there certainly will be no workarounds. They won't raise the volume to disproportionate levels during the commercial break cliffhangers to make louder commercials legal. Why would they do that, especially with the benefit of heightened dramatic effect that exists independent of skirting the law?

You made some good points here. I guess it's all about ease. If Netflix had no DRM, people would use widely available video/audio capture software (hell, they'd just use FRAPS) to record everything, anytime. With DVD rentals, it takes a bit more effort. (going to/from redbox, the mailbox, etc.) There are physical limitations in place which mitigate copying. You have to be a bit of a nerd to work around it.

That said, I think SOME companies (in spite of the copy nazi groups like MAFIAA) recognize this and accept it as the right balance to get maximum exposure of their products with minimal freeloading. Maybe that's why it doesn't bother me. But yeah, some of the DRM measures are just stupid. Heh...

Conflicted...

eh, doesn't really bother me in this case. Netflix has a reasonable business model and content creators do need to get paid. Of course it has DRM: We're essentially renting. We don't pay $8 per month to Netflix for ownership of anything. We DO pay $1-$30+ for digital downloads that we own, and the DRM on that is fucked up. I still buy dvds (typically used but I keep them, sometimes new) because I can rip those easily.

Let's keep our eyes on the ball, people. I've been a big fan of their streaming video since it came out and I never had issues with it. (And it isn't them writing that tablet vs computer vs tv bullshit which is retarded and unenforcable)

It sucks on a phone. :p

And that's what humans who make their profession studying other humans do. (And what I've just done with all anthropologists, sociologists, etc. Groovy) Sadly, though, stereotypes often reign true...but they will always be stereotypes and people who are hackers in Alabama, for instance, will probably laugh at the new wave of box office hacker stereotypes to emerge from this study.

p.s. plugging my tag "labrats", seems appropriate here...

Higher resolution (or poorer compression), yes. Loads faster, absolutely not. Drives me nuts frankly -- I abandon videos on my sketchy home wifi when the ads chug on Hulu. If anything I hope they learned from this study to keep the ads' bps close to that of the content.

In before a million posts about AdBlock. I put up with the ads simply because I want this business model to succeed. Yes, I suppose that makes me stupid. Though I'll be ready for the day they can seamlessly insert ads into the same stream as the program. (Ad blocker programs will have a hard time with that) Also, I take in a lot of media via Netflix, and no I don't pay for Hulu Plus.

For a dplicate machine, yes but onl in the lower end. (Sry typos slow phone) For what you actually want, absolutely not.

TFA has annoying "you won somthing but uh err really didn't" on Android devices that can't be bypassed. Here is a better TFA:

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/11/google_gator/

With a wistful sigh, yes. It's one of those times when one must defy one's principles (in my case, freedom of information, a mild bias toward pacifism and non-interventionism) for the greater good. (our spies and informants not being found out and likely detained/executed, our technological secrets not falling into enemy hands, etc) Me from 10 years ago would disagree with me from today. To steal Penguinisto's quote (which I 100% agree with):

Says the rational American who realizes that the military may do a lot of really disgusting shit, so does every military. If we can't keep secrets, we will simply fail to be effective on the world stage. Bradley should have known going into this that he would be a martyr, and only history will tell if he ends up being a hero.

Definitely a feature. If you look at it though, these apps are just a native replacement for the MSN website...which has ads. Probably always has. I don't see the controversy here. If you don't want to see Microsoft's ads, don't use the preinstall internet apps like Finance, etc...

No one here will admit to catching the reference.